Category Archives: Thrift Shops / Yard Sales

I was excited to pick up some clothes for teaching like the Ann Taylor skirt on the lower left.

This Express dress was only $6 and I think it will be perfect for all of the baby showers I will be attending this year!

Nine West shoes (left) are my crack cocaine of shoes because I can wear them for 12 hours without them hurting my feet. And I adore the Christian Siriano (love him from project runway!) slingback heels on the right!

I was also super excited to pick up this copy of The Tightwad Gazette for $2! This is only the first book and I have the complete one you can see below but I absolutely love this book! It’s full of amazing money saving ideas! I will pass it along to someone else who wants to read it.

This past Saturday I was spending time with a friend who had mentioned she had started selling some old jewelry on the site Postmark and was interested in eBay too. I was telling her my experience about the Goodwill outlet in Austin, Tx. We were a short drive away so we decided to go. I had only ever been to the Goodwill outlet on one other Saturday night. This time it was super busy and hot. We did still manage to find some good stuff. Here is what I found:

I plan on selling this brand new Stephen Colbert book on eBay and keeping the Jim Gaffigan book. Ive already started reading it! Books were 4 for $1.

I picked up this Little Golden Books out of curiosity. Turns out they really don’t sell for much on eBay but i might just list them anyways!

A story book from 1981.

We found so many old interesting books this visit. I believe the maroon book is a 1961 reprint from 1879, the blue book is the complete collection of William Shakepshere published in 1926, and the small brown book is a shorthand dictionary from around 1916!

I found both these mugs to sell on eBay. If I sell just on I will make enough money to pay for my whole shopping trip!

Lastly, I found four small like new Ikea plates I was going to buy a few months back, but for some reason decided against. I found two pyrex bowls, one anchor bowl, and a vintage Welchs Looney Tunes jar from the 80’s.

I also found a Maxi dress from Charminig Charlie (at least $40 in store), a pair of Jessica Simpson maternity shorts (at least $34 at Motherhood Maternity), and a cute tank top. My total was $10!

I had a fun day out and about thrift shopping last Friday with my mom. The best find of the day was definitely this above Griswold Cast Iron Skillet for $5. These skillets are basically heirlooms because they can be used forever. I haven’t decided if I will keep it or sell it on eBay. I already have a cast iron skillet in this size but it’s not as high quality which is ironic because the one above is probably many, many years older.

Cast iron is prized in the chemical free community for not leaching harmful chemicals into food like the non-stick coating on so many pans.

I also got the below clothes. They were .25 cents to $1 which is significantly cheaper than the $3-7 each item at Goodwill. I love smaller, less expensive, charity thrift stores but happen to live closer to several Goodwills. Still secondhand is sooooo much cheaper than buying new and has a lot less of an impact on our planet.

I found this really crazy but adorable but so not my style Flamingos Sweater for about $3 when I was thrifting the other day and I was super excited to find out that it sells on eBay for $45-$120! Who knew???? I currently have it listed here but I will let you know what it sells for but this is a great reminder that eBay is all about unusual and unique items so if it stands out to you some might be willing to pay a good amount for it.

I had so much luck when I went thrifting on Tues. The local thrift store is 50% regular items with a school ID. My total was $25 which would have been $50. I had just been in there but decided to go back because their jeans are usually $5 but I wanted to buy some to try to sell on eBay for $2.50. I got the jeans but I also got some stuff for our house. We have family coming to stay with us this weekend so finding extra sheets and a larger coffee pot was great timing.

For the longest time I have been looking for sheets for our queen sized bed. No lie, we have been stretching our old full sized sheets to fit it for about 4 years. I’m of course very, very picky when it comes to sheets but these were so spotless. I never find queen sheets but today I found two complete sets with pillow cases in green and black and they ended up being $3 and $5 each! I also found an additional IKEA sheet for about $1.

I was also really excited to find two more pairs of 9 West heels (my fav to teach in)!

I got the above old navy flowered sweater, converse jacket, black sweater (love those buttons) and J Crew sweater also. The J Crew sweater is to sell on eBay.

This Black and Decker coffee pot was just $2 and in great condition. We had been using a small coffee pot for so long that this is a huge upgrade but I wasn’t going to upgrade until it was for $2!

I couldn’t believe my luck when today I Found Vintage Christian Louboutin Paris Heels for $6 found at a Thrift Shop today. I just happened to quickly stop in after a doctor’s appointment and I’m so glad I did! These are selling like crazy on eBay for $100-$600 with lots of people watching them. I have always wanted a pair of these with their famous red bottoms but I think I would like $300 more!

They actually weren’t the only designer items I found today! I’ll post more on that soon!

We live in a townhome and our neighbors moved leaving a large pile of stuff at the curb in front of our houses. I couldn’t help taking a look. I got the above shirt and dress (which I will wear to teach as a college professor lol) and the below book series and textbooks and Indiana Jones movies which I will sell on eBay.

They were also throwing away a couch, more clothes, an end table and other household items. We didn’t need the rest but it seemed like a lot of people took stuff from the pile which makes me really happy because it’s less stuff in the landfill.

I went thrifting with my sister and had a few good finds. I found the two above Vera Wang shirts to wear while teaching and the below Dexter shoes. We also found the sealed Lancome perfume for .75 cents that usually sells for around $45 and the below Ray Ban sunglasses case. I have actually found Ray Bans at a thrift shop before for .75 cents each so now I have a name brand case.

Pictured above are the Michael Kors, real leather, ankle boots that I found at Goodwill today. They feel like butter and fit me perfectly. They were $9.99 which I thought was a lot until I looked up what similar shoes were selling for on eBay (~$75-100) and on the Michael Kors website (~$100-$500). Then I suddenly felt like I got a bargain!

We live by several colleges and many students have to move this time of year. This is a great time to go to the local thrift shops that are packed with donations of items that students simply couldn’t or didn’t want to take with them.

I had a great trip to Goodwill today. I was looking for some stuff to sell on eBay since I will not be teaching the first half of summer and I also went with the goal of looking for some size 6 Nine West Heels to teach in. Nine West heels fit my feet perfectly and I can wear them for 12 hours straight without them hurting my feet.

I honestly thought I would be searching for those elusive and expensive heels for most of the summer and I can’t believe that I found a black pair and a white pair today (See below photo)! I LOVE these shoes because my feet love these shoes and I believe the black pair is real leather. I buy Nine West business shoes every time I find them in my size (which isn’t very often) and then they usually last a long time compared to cheaper brands but I spend almost all of my time teaching standing and walking back and forth between buildings, schools and classrooms so I’m rough on my shoes.

If you live in Central Florida and see any in a local thrift shop let me know!!!!!!!! No kidding.

The above teal jacket (it doesn’t look teal in the picture) had such super cool lining and was in such a great color that I couldn’t resist. It’s Mossimo brand.

The above picture is of all of the items I found overall including Ann Taylor petite black dress pants, a maxi dress, assorted shirts, a Levi’s Polo shirt for B and a Polo Polo Shirt for B (he can wear polo shirts to his new job), a Mossimo striped dress, a Lily Pulitzer beach bag, the above pictured teal Mossimo jacket, a banana republic sweater and a really expensive winter coat for B.

The last purchase is really kind of funny because it’s close to 100 degrees in Florida right now but this is actually the best time to buy winter stuff from thrift shops because it’s already becoming difficult to remember what cold feels like.

Speaking of the best time to buy winter items I also added to my Ugly Christmas Sweater collection with the above beauties that I will store with the other ugly prize sweaters I will sell on eBay next Christmas. Or we might have our own ugly sweater party, who knows! I also purchased the Grey Herringbone J Crew jacket to sell and the completely crazy flamingo sweater that sells for a crazy amount on eBay. I’ll post an update on what it sells for.

I love Maxi skirts and the above boho skirt caught my eye.

Above is a picture of B modeling his new winter coat. Pickles added the cat hair when I brought it home. Below is a picture of the really expensive interior lining and pockets. Someone paid a lot of money for this coat but thankfully it wasn’t me!

A couple of days ago I happened to see a sign for a community garage sale for a nice community down the road from where I live. Today I woke up early quite coincidentally AND remembered the sale and ended up going. I was really excited by my purchases. Everything I purchased above was for .25 cents to $3 but most of the items were $1.

I was really excited about finding some Miss Me jeans for $1 that I plan to sell, as well as Guess jeans and Aeropostale jeans. I’m going to try selling jeans on eBay for the first time so I was excited to find a few deals.

I also bought some clothes for myself including a couple of maxi skirts, some cute tops for our beach vacation, and some Hippie type pants that are very popular right now. In the picture below, I also found a set of three IKEA woven baskets for $1 that I had been wanting to buy at IKEA for about $15-20 but never had.

I love community garage sales because you get to go to so many sales without driving long distances between sales. I really hope I can find a few more this summer!